Gwyneth Paltrow cries when she eats pancakes

The 39-year-old actress always loved the breakfast food cooked by her late father Bruce Paltrow but admits tucking in even now makes her feel emotional.

Asked which of her dad's recipes mean most to her, she said: "His barbecued salmon with ginger and thyme and his 'world-famous' pancakes.

"It is hard for me to eat them because I keep expecting him to walk into the kitchen when I do. I make them very rarely and I cry every time. They are the essence of him in a food."

Gwyneth – who has children Apple, seven, and five-year-old Moses with her husband, Coldplay singer Chris Martin – thinks she is a "very traditional" wife who thinks her main responsibility is to her family.

She told the Metro newspaper: "I am very traditional in a 1950s housewife way; cooking, making sure everyone's fed and everything's in order. I think that a wife has a responsibility to make a home and protect the family.

"I also believe that a wife should be able to do whatever she wants and work if she wants. My mother was a less traditional wife than me. She worked to support the family."